rvation. They had both been
instructed how to do this on board the whaler; although Eric, having had
previous practical experience with all the details of the operation, now
acted as superintendent.

They had also to boil the blubber in the iron cauldron, which they had
brought from the States for the purpose of "trying out the oil," as
whaling men technically term the procedure; and they found when they had
finished that the result realised some ten barrels full.

This was a splendid start for them and it made them so contented that it
was upwards of a fortnight before they undertook another expedition to
the west beach.

But, apart, from the satisfactory results of their first venture, they
thought it best to let the seals have a little interlude of calm before
attacking them again. Besides this, Eric's reports from his look-out
station on the tableland were most unfavourable, as, for some days after
their last foray, hardly a seal was to be seen in the neighbourhood of
the scene of the fray.

However, one fine morning in December, Eric reported the arrival of a
fresh batch of the fur-bearing animals on the west rocks; so, making
their boat ready, the brothers soon sailed round thither once more.

They had turned the last projecting point of the headland, before
opening the beach frequented by the seals, and Fritz had brought up the
boat's head to the wind, preparatory to their lowering the sail and
taking to their oars to pull into shore, when Eric, who had been looking
out over the bows, arrested his brother's intention.

"Hullo, Fritz!" he exclaimed, "there's some one there before us. I can
see a boat, with a lot of men in it, close to the beach!"

"Indeed!" said Fritz, quite as much astonished. "I wonder who they
are?"

He felt almost as indignant as a landlord on finding that a party of
poachers had invaded his choicest preserves and were ruthlessly
appropriating his pet pheasants!

"Himmel!" he repeated, "I wonder who the fellows can be?"

Just then, the discharge of several rifles all together, as if
practising platoon firing, struck on his ear; and, as Fritz sniffed the
smell of the burnt gunpowder floating by him in the air to seaward,
driven off from shore by the wind, the saltpetrous scent did not tend to
restore his equanimity!

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

SOME VISITORS.

"What donkeys we are!" exclaimed Eric presently, a moment or so after
the discharge of the firearms. "We are real s